Not anymore, sadly. It was that way up through WotLK, but they changed it in Cataclysm. I can't find any items of identical item level, but http://www.wowhead.com/item=84012 is a pair of ilvl 437 green mail intellect pants, with 706 intellect, and http://www.wowhead.com/item=80910 is a pair of ilvl 435 blue mail intellect pants with 693 intellect.

These days, all item level indicates is either:
1) source (dungeon gear is blue, raid gear is epic, etc), or
2) Level it can be used at (http://www.wowhead.com/item=80910 is a pair of epic ilvl 440 agility pants that can be equipped at level 87, lower than you'd normally be able to equip something of that ilvl)

Current Model
If you have Blue Gear - Congratulations you are past level 15 and developing your character towards max level
If you have Purple Gear- Congratulations you hit level 90, you may or may not be raiding
If you have Orange Gear - Congratulations you've committed a substantial amount of time, skill and energy to acquire it

Proposed Model
If you have Blue Gear - Congratulations you are past level 15 and developing your character towards max level
If you have Purple Gear- Congratulations you have spent a Reasonable amount of Time, Skill and Energy Raiding to acquire it
If you have Orange Gear - Congratulations you've committed a substantial amount of time, skill and energy to acquire it

Current Purple = Proposed Purple. It is just LFR does not require much effort.

If you take LFR into account how can you mention Orange Current = Orange Proposed? You don't need much skill to complete LFR, but you can get your cape by only doing LFR.

- - - Updated - - -

Originally Posted by Brandon138

So I'll say again. Why do we have colors to indicate quality when ilvl is there for the exact same reason?

Why do people care about the color. Cause they live in the past. Wake the fuck up Brandon138, its 2013.

So I'll say again. Why do we have colors to indicate quality when ilvl is there for the exact same reason?

Enchanting, nostalgia, and egos. It doesnt have any real meaning outside of enchanting, but does have a play on player physiology. GC has said that a lot of players might leave LFR if it only rewarded blues which shows how many players place an emotional value to the color of a piece of gear even if their character power remains the same. The perceived worth of the content goes down which further emphasis how much just the color of a piece of gear could get players to do something they dont enjoy. In Cata there was players complaining about the heroics not dropping epics. Blizzard could have made the gear 345 ilvl epics and there would have been no actual power difference, but those players might have stopped complaining after having their fragile egos stroked with an illusion.

While it is not the case for everyone there are players who take the color of a piece of gear seriously and it isnt just "special snowflakes". Than again just because your not successful in a video game doesnt mean you are not a special snowflake, just a butthurt failure of a special snowflake not wanting anyone to be better than you. With Blizzards talk about increased focus on five mans again there are LFR players who bashed haters and now are showing themselves to the haters against five mans and acting like the ones they bashed.

"Purple" has and always should represent end-game gear. It does not matter the type of end game, just the end game. Only vanilla had epics nearly exclusive to raids, with the few rare drops in dungeons and a few craftables. Even then getting epic gear by the end of the life cycle was not hard because Ony and MC were easily puggable.

BC was actually the expansion they started handing out epics like candy, because it was the expansion that added both Arena epics and the first currency "badge" system.

iLevel then represents the difference in power of each end-game purple.

It's a sweet and simple system, and attempting to alter it will just cause more people to drop.

Why aren't greens even talked about in the OP? Green for past level 15, blues are for beginning max level, purples for end game max level. White gear is of course for low levels.

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